Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry

The Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, which focuses primarily on research into depression and anxiety disorders, is one of the world's leading institutes in this field. Here, basic research is closely interlinked with clinical research: the Institute incorporates a 120-bed hospital, numerous specialist outpatient departments and three day units. Within these facilities, the modern research branches of genetics and proteomics are combined with the clinical analysis techniques of imaging and the measurement of brain function. The aim is to identify biomarkers of psychiatric and neurological disorders in a bid to better understand the molecular basis of these diseases. The knowledge obtained goes into the development of new therapies and drugs for the personalised medicine of tomorrow.

The President of the Max Planck Society is launching a complete review of all those Max Planck Institutes that still own collections of human specimens. Initial investigations at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry had shown that the Institute still possesses brain sections which actually should have been interred in Munich's Waldfriedhof in 1990. The Max Planck Society will also appoint a project with a view to establishing the identities of the victims based on the available files and records.
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People who haven’t gotten enough sleep often see the world as a fairly sad place. If their tiredness lasts for weeks or even months, their dark mood may become chronic and develop into depression. Conversely, depression is frequently also associated with severe sleep disorders. Axel Steiger and his team at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich are studying the connection between disturbed sleep and depression. To do this, they measure human brain activity in the sleep lab.

Years after their occurrence, terrorist attacks, natural disasters and accidents continue to trigger anxiety and panic attacks in many people. Those afflicted find themselves reliving the event in nightmares or flashbacks.

Malformations of the cerebral cortex are often associated with intellectual disability and epilepsy. These disorders arise in the course of cortical development as a consequence of disturbance of neuronal development, migration and connection. In order to develop therapeutic strategies, it is essential to understand the genetic causes and to investigate the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying these malformations. The MPI research group uses cerebral organoids derived from induced stem cells for this purpose.
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Psychiatric disorders can affect our ability to successfully and enjoyably interact with others. The neural mechanisms of social interaction and transdiagnostic social impairments are only now beginning to be studied thanks to methodological developments. In the future, interaction-based functional neuroimaging, used by scientists at the MPI of Psychiatry, may help in the selection and refinement of treatment options for psychiatric disorders.
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MicroRNAs regulate the activity of genes in our cells. Thus, in nerve cells of the brain, they influence our behavior or our reaction to the environment – two processes that are disturbed in psychiatric diseases. Now microRNAs have been discovered, which for instance act as our body’s own antidepressant or allow an adequate reaction to stressful situations. Better understanding of the role of microRNAs in psychiatric disorders will help to develop new diagnostics or treatment approaches.
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Childhood maltreatment not only harms mind and body but leaves long-lasting modifications on genes. Patients suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder who have or have not experienced childhood maltreatment, displayed distinct epigenetic profiles in immune cells. Thus identical psychiatric diagnosis can be accompanied by distinct biological signatures and possibly differential response to treatment. This highlights the importance of the patient’s individual biography in defining disease subtypes.
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Depression is a complex psychiatric disorder that is thought to develop due to a combination of genetic risk factors with exposure to aversive environments. FKBP5, a co-chaperone of stress hormone receptors, seems to be a key mediator of depression, as polymorphisms in the gene encoding FKBP5 can increase the likelihood to develop this disease. By investigating the molecular, structural, physiological and behavioral function of FKBP5 we can support the central role of this co-chaperone in stress and depression, and pave the way for the development of novel antidepressant treatment strategies.
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An impaired stress-hormone regulation plays an important role for the development of depression. Genetic variations in the FKBP5 gene expressing a modulator of the stress hormone axis contribute in interaction with environmental stress factors to increased depression susceptibility. Successful antidepressant treatment is closely related to the recovery of the stress hormone regulation, which in turn is modulated by FKBP5 activity. Thus, FKBP5 is a promising target for future antidepressant drugs, which should be particularly effective in patients with impaired stress-hormone regulation.
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Behaviour and emotions result from the electrical activity of neuronal networks in the brain. Disturbances of this activity of brain circuits will thus play a causal role in the pathogenesis and pathology of psychiatric disorders. The exploration of such dysfunctions in the electrical activity will expedite the development of more effective treatments of these disorders. A modern imaging approach is now used to visualize changes in the propagation of electrical nerve cell activity through brain circuits.more

Early-life stress causes attachment of elementary chemical markings – so-called methyl groups – to our genetic material, resulting in persistent alteration of the activity of genes. This discovery was possible by help of mice which were separated from their mothers shortly after birth and, as a consequence of this, showed elevated stress hormones and reduced stress tolerance all their life. In case of corresponding disposition both are precursors to major depression.
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The FK506-binding protein 51 (FKBP51) regulates the signal transduction of steroid hormone receptors and is genetically associated with a variety of affective disorders. Two key steps for a better understanding of this protein in mammalian behaviour are the characterization of transgenic mice and the development of specific inhibitors. The latter further have the potential to study the role of FKBP51 in clinical studies.
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The restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a common neurological disorder. Since the first description a large genetic contribution in the aetiology was suspected. For the first time genetic risk variants for RLS have been identified performing a genome wide association study by genotyping 500 000 common genetic variants. More than 1600 patients with RLS and 2600 controls of the general population have participated in this study. The identified genes MEIS1, BTBD9, and LBXCOR1 are know as control factors in embryonic development. Their role in the adult brain is still unknown.
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Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a heterogenous, chronic inflammatory, demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS). Despite of many research efforts the cause of MS is unknown. Today new techniques allow the investigation of nearly the whole genome, transcriptome and proteome. The Max-Planck-Institute of Psychiatry uses these techniques to explore the pathogenesis of MS and to open the possibility for an individualized therapy.
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Modern high-throughput and ultra high-throughput genetic approaches allow the identification of predictors of individual response to treatment with anti-depressants. The herein drafted studies exemplify that large cohorts of well phenotyped individuals are vital to the success of genetic analyses.
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Functional neuroimaging techniques provide an excellent opportunity to investigate dynamic aspects of information processing during sleep in humans. At the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, a method for simultaneous recordings of the electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during sleep has been established. Subject to the respective sleep stage, acoustic stimuli led to different regional activation or deactivation patterns in cortical and subcortical brain regions, allowing conclusions on stimuli processing during sleep. Future studies and further developments of this technique will lead to a substantial progress regarding the functional neuroanatomy of sleep and the effects of sleep deprivation and psychopharmacological drugs on cognitive functioning.
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Over the past years the approach to understand complex cellular mechanisms in the life and medical sciences has shifted from a hypothesis-driven to a discovery-driven science. Instead of focussing on a selected number of genes or proteins the discovery-driven approach seeks a comprehensive analysis and global description of cellular mechanisms. The trend to a discovery-driven science has also occurred at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry where basic and clinical scientists are trying to understand the pathogenic mechanisms of affective and neurological disorders. Proteomics, the comprehensive analysis of the protein complement of the genome of an organism, represents such a global bioanalytical effort that has been established at the institute. Our efforts using proteomics to gain a better understanding and to search for targets for depression, anxiety and multiple sclerosis are described.
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